Bryn Terence Williams was a consultant cardiothoracic surgeon at St Thomas’ Hospital, London. He was born on 7 February 1939 in Halesowen, the son of George Frederick Williams and May Elizabeth Williams née Poole. He studied medicine at Birmingham University, qualifying in June 1962. After graduating, he received his surgical training in both London and Birmingham and spent a year on a Buswell scholarship as surgical research fellow at the State University of New York at Buffalo. In January 1974, he was appointed as a consultant at St Thomas’. He was the surgeon responsible for developing the coronary artery surgical programme at St Thomas’, and his meticulous attention to detail and the very high standards that he demanded both from himself and the team he worked with resulted in excellent operative and post-operative results. He gained a reputation (both at home and abroad) for being willing to take on difficult cases (complex revision and high risk), and for many years organised an overseas registrar training programme, which had the approval of the Royal College of Surgeons, providing advanced cardiac surgical training for one or two years for overseas trainees, who then returned to senior positions in their own countries. As part of this commitment to overseas training he arranged surgical teams to visit cardiac centres abroad in Pakistan, Egypt, Turkey, India, Kenya and Kuwait, and on several occasions I accompanied him with a cardiac catheterisation laboratory team. Watching him at work in a strange environment, with colleagues that he had not worked with before, made me appreciate his patience, his talent for improvisation, and his ability to maintain high standards despite working conditions that were not always ideal. He was early to recognise the importance of handling the harvesting of saphenous veins for coronary artery grafting with great care to avoid damaging the vein and leg wounds which (particularly in elderly and diabetic patients or those with peripheral vascular disease) can take a long time to heal. An instrument (the Dimitri dissector), which allows the vein to be removed with minimum trauma to the leg, was developed under his direction. Other innovations developed during his time at St Thomas’ included the surgical strategy of allowing patients to be woken and taken off the ventilator immediately after their operation (‘fast tracking’). They were nursed overnight in a general surgical recovery area and returned to the ward the next morning, allowing earlier hospital discharge. Another innovation was the reduction in the need for blood transfusion. As a teenager, he had had a fascination with microbiology, hence his interest in microscopes (he had a collection of old microscopes) and his fellowship of the Royal Microscopical Society. He also had a great interest in Leica cameras, and the link between these two interests was probably the fine engineering involved in precision optical instruments. This interest in engineering explains his endeavours to improve the hardware associated with cardiac surgery, including the Williams-Barefoot electromagnetic flow probe, an extractable device which can be wrapped around an ascending aorta or bypass graft, allowing for continuous recording of blood flow in the aorta or graft in the post-operative period, a haemostatic cuff designed to control haemorrhage from suture lines in badly diseased vessels, and the left ventricular resectoscope, an instrument that facilitates left ventricular septal resection in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Bryn’s father went to work for the British Motor Corporation soon after it was formed, and got a significant discount on a new MGB car for Bryn. This (together with his fascination with precision engineering) may have been the beginning of his interest in vintage sports cars and his involvement in motor racing. As part of his promotion of safety on both road and track, he designed a thoracic protection jacket using surgical and anatomical considerations to minimise chest injuries in motorcycle accidents. Following his retirement as a cardiac surgeon, he moved from Weybridge to Oxfordshire with his wife Caroline (née Cheaser) and, together with his son Gareth (a trainee vascular surgeon), was able to devote more time to racing his stable of vintage sports cars. Over the years, he owned sports cars by Turner, MG, Alfa Romeo, Porsche, Lotus, Ferrari, Aston Martin, Bristol and Frazer Nash, and latterly with Gareth raced them all over the world. After moving to Blue Barn Farm, he also enjoyed farming in a shared farming agreement and had a licence to breed great crested newts. In 2017, he was diagnosed with cancer of the head of the pancreas. He underwent major surgery (Whipple’s procedure), but the operation did not succeed in prolonging his life by more than a few months. He died on 24 July 2018 at the age of 79 and was survived by Caroline (his wife of 40 years), his daughter Zara with her two children, and his son, Gareth.